"Every year, state governments spend tens of billions of dollars through contracts for goods and services," the study's authors wrote. "Accountability and public scrutiny are necessary to ensure that the public can trust that state funds are well spent."

In order to judge said "transparency," OSPIRG inspected 13 elements on each state government website designed to provide financial transparency.

Each element was then given a rating based on a uniform standard for each category. For example, Utah, which scored a B- overall, received 24 out of 24 points for "providing a list or database of individual expenditures made to individual recipients," which was labeled by the researchers as the "Checkbook" score.

Of the 51 states or districts rated, 28 scored at least a B- overall, indicating superior levels of transparency. You might be surprised by which states didn't make the cut.